


We Are (you know the rest)

by verboseDescription



Series: Spiders And Friends [3]
Category: Spider-Gwen (Comics), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Found Family, eddie and venom are dating but that's not a super big plot point, gwenom - Freeform, ish, this doesnt really have to be a spiderverse fic but gwen's a teenager so it must be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 05:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17843540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verboseDescription/pseuds/verboseDescription
Summary: Gwen Stacy decides to take a trip down multiverse memory lane to visit the Gwen who helped when she was just a newly bonded symbiote host. Of course, traveling dimensions isn't always as easy as it seems, and Gwen finds herself blown off course, and into the universe of a slightly different symbiote host. Her dimensional watch is on the fritz, but it should finish running diagnostics in a day or two. Until then, look's like it's "Weekend at Eddie's"





	We Are (you know the rest)

**Friday**

It’s impossible for him not to notice the girl in white crawling around on the walls of the building in front of him, but even if Eddie somehow managed to miss what looks like the weirdest parkour in the world, there was no way he could miss Venom screaming inside his head. V’s not exactly freaking out—in fact, he sounds more excited than worried—but he _is_ trying to tell Eddie to be careful, which can only mean that the girl in front of them has the power to either destroy the world or feed them broccoli.

Before Eddie can ask what exactly’s going on with the girl, she turns to face him. He doesn’t want to say she’s looking at _him,_ because hey, she’s wearing a mask, and who can tell, really, but then her costume, bubbles and turns into a swarm of spiders, rearranging themselves until she’s in a similar outfit, but all in black. Her hood has teeth now, razer sharp like a shark. Or like Venom.

But she doesn’t do anything. She just keeps staring, like she’s trying to say something important. It feels a little like meeting a coyote in the wild, as if this is a quiet acknowledgement from a beast in her element.

Then, the moment is over, and the girl climbs up the building.

 ** _Eddie,_** Venom says. **_She’s waiting for us._**

“Guess we better go see what that’s about then, huh?”

 

The girl’s name, it turns out, is Gwen Stacy. She has a piercing on eyebrow, and as soon as she makes her mask fade, Eddie can’t help but wonder how it feels to have that be hit with hundreds of small spiders. She’s a teenager, and she’s had a symbiote for about a year, in part because of a meeting with a morally dubious scientist in the pocket of a crime boss who had far too many plans for her future.

“But he’s gone now,” Gwen says. “So it’s fine. It’s whatever. Can you buy me a corndog?”

“How did you—did you know?” Eddie asks, stumbling over the question. “I mean, that...”

 “Yeah,” Gwen says. “We can tell when someone’s like us. And when they’re nice enough to give a sweet teenage girl a free lunch and maybe a place to stay?”

“Any reason why you can’t just bug your folks?” Eddie asks, but he knows that V’s already decided Gwen’s not leaving their sight.

“I’m kind of, uh, far from home?” Gwen says. She frowns and fiddles with a watch on her arm. “I came here a weird way. And I can’t really do it again for a while.”

“That’s not, that doesn’t tell me much,” Eddie says.

“It’s a really long story,” Gwen says. She sounds tired.

 **“We will buy you many corndogs,”** Venom promises her. Gwen raises an eyebrow, like she hadn’t expected him to speak, which kind of makes Eddie want to ask about her bond with her own symbiote, but the kid is hungry, and so is he.

“There’s a burger joint down the block,” Eddie says. “Y’might wanna change into something a little less…”

Before Eddie can finish his sentence, the spiders reappear and crawl off into who knows where, leaving Gwen in ripped jeans and a t-shirt.

“Okay,” Eddie says. “Time for food.”

 

Between the four of them, they only eat about four burgers. Ever since Eddie had made, _ahem,_ certain changes to his diet, he’s been feeling less of the need to scarf down everything in sight. Gwen doesn’t seem that hungry either, but Eddie can’t imagine this small teenager going out and doing what he does. Then again, he should know better than to judge a book by its cover.

As they eat, Gwen talks about her symbiote, and how they met. Eddie can tell she’s leaving out some important information, but it’s not wholly unfamiliar. An evil scientist, a specimen escaping, a few others who couldn’t handle the bond—and then finding each other.

But Gwen had given herself up in a way Eddie hadn’t. She knew what a danger the previous host was, and refused to let a monster of their combined strength be unleashed in the world. She hadn’t expected—well, everything, but she was getting used to it.

“I met this girl,” Gwen begins slowly. “She was a bit older than me, but we really, uh, clicked? But she helped me. All she wanted from me was to make sure I was okay, and I was. Thanks to her. So I wanted to find her again, to tell her that. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought.”

“If you give me a name, I can try and help,” Eddie offers. “I am a reporter. Finding things out is what I do.”

“It’s not that simple,” Gwen says, frowning into her burger. “She’s not… If it was that easy, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. He’s guessing the other girl was a runaway, that maybe the two had left home at the same time, but even if that made her harder to find, it shouldn’t be _impossible._ “So what’s up with the spiders?”

“I used to have spider powers,” Gwen says casually, taking another bite of her burger. “I think it’s just like… a leftover from that? Or maybe I just still think of myself as Spider-Woman.”

“Spider-Woman, huh?” Eddie says. “That why I found you climbing on walls?”

“It’s definitely why I can do that in the first place, yeah,” Gwen says. “A different evil scientist stole my powers, but Ven can pretty much mimic everything I used to do. So—spider-sense, super strength, wall climbing? All still there.”

“Wait, Ven?” Eddie repeats. He’s about to joke about the absurdity of it—Ven and _Gwen—_ when he notices the girl’s look.

“Yeah, uh, short for Vendy,” Gwen says nervously. “I mean, uh, her name isn’t Vendy, but I call her that sometimes, because as a kid people called me Gwendy, but you know the spiders, and that’s like…”

She’s worried because she thinks he’s going to put something together with the information she’s given out. She’s obviously lying about the origin of the name—because come on, “my nickname, but with a Transylvanian accent,” is a terrible idea, and she clearly knows that—but that means that the real name is something he’d recognize. Something like…

“It’s short for Venom, isn’t it?” Eddie asks. Gwen shrinks in her seat. “How did you know our symbiotes would have the same name?”

“Because,” Gwen says, shrinking lower. “They’re the same person.”

 

The watch on Gwen’s arm allows her to travel through dimensions.

Okay. Cool.

Eddie can deal with that.

In her world, V never meets a guy called Eddie Brock. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t even _exist_ in her world, honestly, which is kind of a bummer. Eddie is getting used to the weirdness of his life enough to accept the idea that maybe there’s more than one universe out there, but he had kind of hoped that if there _was,_ he’d still be with his other in it.

It’s not _exactly_ his other, though—Gwen says that she was told Ven was made from “alien DNA,” which Eddie takes to mean her earth somehow managed to clone symbiotes or something equally as terrifying. At least that explained why Ven didn’t talk. The rules were probably different for synthetic symbiotes.

Venom’s still reeling from this information too, but not in the same way Eddie is. His species reproduces asexually, which makes Ven as good as his daughter.

 **“She has your hair,”** V tells Eddie fondly.

“And your teeth,” Eddie says, giving V a quick kiss. Ven, seeing this, manifests as a large spider and wiggles her legs until Gwen rolls her eyes and gives her a kiss. It’s kind of adorable.

“I already have a dad,” Gwen says, sitting down on Eddie’s kitchen table. They’re in his apartment, making Eddie acutely aware of the fact he really needs to go shopping if Gwen’s going to actually stay over. And the fact that he _really_ needs to clean up his shit. “I don’t need two more.”

 **“We’re fairly certain desire or need plays no part into human family structures,”** Venom says. **“We are your father now. You must listen to us.”**

“Yeah, yeah,” Gwen says, rolling her eyes. “Whatever, Dad.”

 **“That is more like it,”** Venom says. Gwen laughs.

“I didn’t want to freak you out,” she admits. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. Normally, there’s a lot more going on when we travel. Alternate dimensions are really just another day in the life where I come from. But it’s always still weird, and it’s always weird to see your alternate self, and I guess I figured we’re close enough to that that it’d be easier if I just didn’t say anything. And my watch’ll be up and running by the end of the weekend. It just needs to recalibrate.”

 **“We could already tell you were full of shit,”** Venom tells her. **“You are not a good liar.”**

“And I’d be more worried if you kept lying,” Eddie says. “I was getting pretty sure you were a runaway. I’m glad to know I don’t actually have to adopt my new daughter.”

Gwen rolls her eyes at that, then looks up at the ceiling and sighs.

“It’s probably better I told you the truth,” she says. “Better this than you looking me up and finding out I died three years ago or something.”

“Died?”

“Pretty much every universe I go to, I’m dead,” Gwen says. “That’s why I was looking for the girl I knew. A while back, the watch like, messed up, and shot me out into a world I couldn’t get out of. I could barely get it to register that I even _went_ to another dimension without having an error message pop up. And then I saw me, but as like, a college student. And everything we did, I couldn’t help but think like, ‘Is this it? Is this how she goes?’ But she didn’t. She was safe. _We_ were safe.”

There’s an edge to her words that Eddie isn’t unfamiliar with. There’s something she isn’t saying, but he knows what it is this time. He knows that that encounter was the first time Gwen realized she _could_ stay alive. That she could find a way to continue to exist despite the oh-so-many obstacles in her path that had nothing to do with being Spider-Woman, or whatever other crazy shit the kid got into.

The emotion stirring in Eddie’s chest is hard to put into words, but he knows that Venom feels exactly the same.

He’s really proud of their daughter.

 

Eddie takes them grocery shopping. Gwen takes this opportunity to point out the brands they pass and tell him what they’re called in her universe. Venom’s weirdly excited about it, and his good mood infects both Gwen and Eddie.

“So, uh, is there anything we should be worried about?” Eddie asks, after Venom finishes laughing about some alternate universe waffle slogan. “About the whole not from here thing. Like what if there are—I don’t know, diseases? Is it _safe_ for you to stay?”

“I’ve stayed a week in someone else’s dimension before,” Gwen says. “And that was with a _much_ worse transporter, so like, if I didn’t die from that, there’s no _way_ I’m dying from some universe-specific bacteria.”

“A whole week?”

“Yeah, long story short, it’s why I have the watch now,” Gwen explains. “We got pulled into another dimension by some evil asshole looking for, uh—a replacement family, I think?—but he did a really bad job, so we all had to go home or we’d die, and then we made a new, better version that’s a lot safer.”

“Your life is way too complicated,” Eddie tells her as Gwen fills up their shopping cart with waffles. “And, hey, _no._ You can have one. I don’t want all this shit in my house after you leave.”

“Okay, _Dad,”_ Gwen says, her a tone scathing in a way that only a teenager could manage.

 ** _My own flesh and blood,_** Venom thinks with fake outrage, making Eddie snort.

“So, what’s it like being a teenage superhero?” Eddie asks. “Just as fun as the comics made it seem?”

“Uh, if you mean, ‘getting shot at by the police on the daily and feeling like life is a never-ending cycle on repeat,’ yeah, it was kind of like a comic book,” Gwen says. “But it’s much better now that my friends know. We haven’t talked it all out, but I know they have my back now, and that means more to me than I thought it would. Plus, I put a bunch of evil ninjas in jail, so that felt pretty good.”

“Fighting ninjas does sound very cool,” Eddie agrees.

“I actually really only fought one ninja,” Gwen replies. “The rest just got jailed through association and because of all the evidence I had on him.”

“You investigated ninjas away?” Eddie laughs. “Maybe you really are my kid.”

“My real dad’s a cop,” Gwen says. “He always told me that the truth was powerful. Maybe it’s not easy, but if a person in the right position comes forth, all the lies come out. And a statement from a superhero? As long as you can get it into court, it’s pretty damning.”

Eddie can’t imagine how that would go down. Did she go to the cops? Told them, “no, don’t worry about witness protection, I can protect myself,” as she walked up to the stands, pointing out every hired goon that had tried to bring her down. Did she have to take off her mask? Eddie loves V—like, _really_ loves him—but he’s not that keen on his relationship being in a public court file. He can’t imagine any hero being comfortable on the stands—secret identities were probably like, the _one_ thing they all shared.

“Sounds to me like you’re a pretty great hero,” Eddie tells her.

“I try not to let it go to my head,” Gwen smiles.

**Saturday**

The next morning, Eddie wakes up to Venom screaming, **“Loud, loud!”** so he runs to the kitchen, shirtless, only to see Gwen blasting music on her phone, eating a waffle with her hands, and nodding her head to the beat as she talks to Dan. There are spiders around her phone, but they seem to be enjoying themselves, not crying like Venom would be if he was that close to the sounds of punk rock.

“Your friend’s here,” Gwen says, through a mouthful of food.

“He’s a doctor,” Eddie says, still half asleep. “I thought he’d be, he’s generally—can you turn the music off?”

“Sorry,” Gwen says. She turns it off.

“And her symbiote wasn’t bothered in the slightest!” Dan says. He’s just as invested as Eddie thought he’d be. “Multiple universes—how weird! Oh, I’m sorry Venom, I didn’t realize we were bothering you.”

 **“Loud…,”** Venom hisses, manifesting as a glob on Eddie’s shoulder and glaring at Dan.

“I mean, I play the drums,” Gwen says. “And I’m in a band. That was one of our songs, actually! So I guess she kind of got used to the noise.”

“The noise that V sometimes finds _physically painful_ to hear?” Eddie asks.

“I guess I’m just that cool,” Gwen says with a smirk. “I’m also like, slightly radioactive maybe? I guess that could be related.”

“You didn’t tell me that!” Dan says, and Gwen goes to reassure him that her body is fine, really, she just has a lot going on.

“I can’t imagine V letting me play anything that loud,” Eddie says. “Are you sure they’re really related?”

“How are you supposed to appreciate music if you’re not putting it on blast?” Gwen asks. “And I definitely didn’t _hurt_ him. He just didn’t it.”

Gwen sticks out her tongue at V, who tries to mimic the gesture and fails wonderfully. Eddie is so in love with this dumb alien sticking out of his shoulder.

“When it comes to music, me and Venom march to the same beat,” Gwen says. “We’re sensitive to sound, too, but that just means the songs we do like sound that much better. I bet it’s the same with you.”

“Maybe,” Eddie agrees. “I’m going to get dressed. Don’t burn anything.”

“Sure,” Gwen says. She takes another waffle. “Did we get syrup?”

 

Eddie finds out several important things about Gwen. For one thing, he looks up to see if the Gwen Stacy in this world is dead, but all he finds is information about some cop named George in New York. He doesn’t know if this is Gwen’s dad, or some alternate gender-swapped version of her—man, how weird would _that_ be?—but at least if he can’t find out if she’s dead, Gwen won’t be able to either.

Second, Ven is using “she/her” pronouns only because “sisterhood.” She just wants to use the same pronouns as Gwen, because she loves Gwen, which is also part of the reason she goes by “Ven.” Eddie thinks it’s cute, like a kid insisting they get the same color shoes as an older sibling, or a pair of twins with matching nicknames. It’s hard for Gwen to explain to Eddie why the symbiote is like this, partially because Ven doesn’t really speak in words and people don’t really speak to each other in a mixture of memories and feelings. Venom seems like he understands just fine, though, so Eddie thinks he’ll get it soon enough.

Third, Gwen has _no idea_ that Ven needs to eat.

“It’s a living creature,” Dan says. “You thought it was just, _fine_?”

“She’s already got my body!” Gwen insists. “What else does she need?”

“Uh, chemicals?” Eddie adds helpfully. “Like, hormones. And meat.”

“Well I am a teenager,” Gwen says. “And I’ve been eating a _lot_ of corndogs.”

Eddie and Dan share a look. There is no way they can tell this teenage girl that Eddie’s been eating people. There is no way they can tell her that _she_ might start eating people.

“V generally likes his meat a bit, uh, fresher than that,” Eddie says. Gwen stares at him. “Just an FYI, I guess.”

 “Is it possible that on her Earth, Venom eats something that’s a bit more naturally occurring in humans?” Dan wonders. “Taking excess adrenaline, for example. If you’re living an active life style, it should be pretty easy for him to survive off of that.”

“I don’t know,” Gwen says. “I _was_ really hungry for a while, but then I like, met my alternate self and went to juvie, and I guess all that waking up at seven AM was good for my health or whatever.”

“It is generally best to keep a steady sleep schedule, yes,” Dan says. “But that’s partially for your mental health.”

“Well, when I’m hungry, I’m cranky,” Gwen says. “Also, everyone says that symbiote’s lower inhibitions or whatever. Is there like, a chemical for that? Maybe she’s just eating whatever goes on in my head that reminds me it’s a bad idea to make fun of crime lords.”

“That’s a sound hypothesis,” Dan says. Eddie’s acutely aware of how glad he is that Dan’s here. Eddie knows without a doubt he can’t successfully be the voice of reason for both Venom _and_ Gwen. He’s barely the voice of reason for _himself._

“I’m going to go for a jog,” Eddie says. He claps Gwen on the shoulder. When his hand comes back, there’s spiders on it, but instead of looking like actual, living spiders, it reminds Eddie of a very gooey looking temporary tattoo. “We can try and figure a way to find that other you’s dimension when I get back.”

“Sure thing,” Gwen says, and Eddie goes to find someone to eat.

 

Gwen’s not at his apartment when Eddie gets back. A fourth, very important thing about Gwen he finds out is that those spiders she put on him were _trackers._

She hadn’t put them on him intentionally. It just happened sometimes, especially when she was with someone she considered a friend. Ven was a little overprotective like that.

So, she knew what he had done.

But she wasn’t afraid of him—just angry. Dan tried to convince her that maybe if she wasn’t cool staying with Eddie, she could come home with him, but she had refused.

“You _knew_ about this,” she accused. “You’re a doctor, and you _let him hurt people.”_

And then she was gone.

Eddie’s bummed by this, but V takes it harder then Eddie ever could. The only other creature like him on Earth, and they had run her off _._

They hadn’t even been that hungry, honestly, and that was the worst part. They’d been really hungry, yesterday, and knew that today would be their last chance to nab this particular creep, so Eddie had gone, even though he knew Gwen was waiting for him with the large, trusting eyes of a child.

Man, they felt like shit.

“I’m sure she’ll be okay,” Eddie says, partially to Dan, but mainly to Venom. “She said she survived a week in another world before. Surviving a day should be no sweat.”

“She’s still a kid, Eddie,” Dan says.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to find her,” Eddie says. “I mean, I think she can sense me coming or something—but I’ll try! I’ll text you if I find her.”

“Thanks,” Dan says. “If I see her around, I’ll give you a call.”

**Saturday Afternoon (Anger)**

Gwen knows that Ven’s mad that she made them leave, because her symbiote keeps sending her memories of Gwen and her dad. She sees him teaching her to fight, sees him helping her with her homework and knows that all Ven wants is to see her other self. He could teach her the ropes, maybe. They could share stories about how wonderful symbiosis was, what it was like being on a planet that would always assume the worst of you.

Still angry, Gwen sends back an image of The Mary Janes at practice, only for Ven to send back a memory of Em Jay and her dissolving into a screaming match because Gwen’s late to practice, for the tenth time in the last _month._

 _“What about responsibility?”_ Em Jay had screamed. _“What about us, huh?”_

Jokes on Ven—responsibility was all she _ever_ thought about.

They both remember Peter. _Her_ Peter. They remember how she had punched him and only moments later regretted it, how they saw his fragile body on the ground and—she hadn’t even hit him that _hard._ She could have hit _so much stronger._

But he still died. So Spider-Woman promised herself she’d stop being a dumb girl jumping around in a mask and start being a hero, and Gwen Stacy learned some self-control.

It wasn’t like she even really needed a place to stay, anyways. Eddie had just been the closest person she could that was even remotely like her, so she had figured she might as well take advantage of that. But now that she had left, she didn’t expect to go asking around for a place to crash. Even if Spider-Man existed in this universe, they were in San Francisco, and going all the way to New York just to find this universe’s Aunt May’s house would be more trouble than it’s worth.

She could probably sleep outside anyways, if it came to that. Venom was annoyed at her, but not so annoyed that she wouldn’t provide them a blanket when Gwen needed it.

Either way, they weren’t going back. How could Eddie expect her to just—be okay with that? He had gone out, not looking to save someone, but looking to eat, to end another person’s life, and then he wanted to walk back inside, like nothing had happened? Like this was just something he did all the time? She couldn’t forgive that.

Another memory floods her mind. Peter, alive and well, with his hands on his hips.

_“I’ll forgive you this time, Gwendy,” He says, but there’s no heat to his voice. “Because you’re like a sister to me. But you’re on thin ice.”_

_Gwen smiles at him, and he smiles back. And just like that, everything’s good._

_Because they’re family._

“We don’t need Eddie,” Gwen hisses. “We didn’t come here to find a symbiote. We came here to find _Gwen._ ”

She hates this. She had just eaten, but she felt _so hungry._ She misses the other Gwen she had met. She had felt _safe._ Less alone. Gwen keeps forgetting what that’s like. And no matter what how many times she says she’s better off without friends, Gv(ven) Stacy hates being alone.

Tears swell in her eyes, but Gwen knows it’s not her doing. Ven was rarely so emotional, but seeing the other Venom must have unlocked something in her that it hadn’t in Gwen. Their desires line up so often, Gwen forgets that they have different minds. But it’s not exactly that their desires don’t like up now; they just had different ideas on how to get what they wanted. And of course she what she wants a dad. _Gwen_ still wanted her dad, and why wouldn’t Ven want someone in their life who’d teach her how to play catch, or whatever the weird alien equivalent of that was?

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Gwen says gently. “But after all we went through, I couldn’t let us just pretend like nothing was wrong. But it’ll be okay, because we’re together. And when we get home, we’ll call up Jesse and see if Cindy told him anything about symbiotes, okay? We’re together, so we’re going to be fine.”

 

 

 

Here’s how it went—

Gwen meets Gwen as she hobbles out onto the sidewalk from the alleyway she had fallen into.

“Are you okay?” Gwen asks. Then, “Are you a clone? Please tell me you aren’t, I don’t think I could handle that today.”

Gwen doesn’t answer, but Gwen leads her inside a restaurant, and Gwen never says no to free food.

She’s _hungry._ But what’s worse is, she’s angry at herself. She had the chance to kill Murdock, and he had just looked at her and _smirked._ Because he knew that his death would make her just like him—someone with far too much power, fearing no one and obeying no rules. But she had made the decision to be Spider-Woman because she _needed_ someone holding her accountable after Peter’s death. People had seen her and thought _murderer,_ and she wanted to force them to change their minds by being so _nice_ and so _good_ the world would have no choice but to see her as a friend. She had never wanted to become a **_monster._** Not like _him._

**And she wasn’t going to let him make her one.**

Or anyone else, for that matter.

Gwen sits down at a booth and rests her head on the window. Gwen’s talking about their father, saying that he had died, and Gwen’s heart goes out to her, thinking about her own father, lying in his hospital bed.

“I didn’t plan on telling you all this,” Gwen says. “I mean, what’s the point in giving you more bad news? Like, ‘Hey there, otherworldy Gwen-terloper! I just lost my dad, along with all meaning in my life.’ But seeing you—I guess I’m taking it as a sign. That even after everything, I’m still not alone.”

This is what breaks Gwen. Tears well up in her eyes and pretty soon she finds herself spilling her own story to the girl in front of her. Her mind feels so _fractured,_ full of anger and despair that she barely remembers what it’s like to be a person anymore. The only reason she could fight the temptation to strangle Murdock was out of spite, and she hated herself for being so weak willed.

“But Dad’s still alive where you are,” Gwen says. “When he wakes up, you can make him proud. Not everyone gets that. You’re lucky, Gwen. Never forget that.”

Gwen reaches out her hand to comfort her, but after taking it, Gwen quickly looking away, and back to the window. For a moment, she sees mistakes the tendrils sticking out of her “scarf” as a person, and sees herself three times in the reflection—a superhero, a college student, and a symbiote. Three strange girls doing their best in a world out to get them.

“Seeing you like this,” Gwen says. “Knowing that somewhere out there, there’s a world where Gwen Stacy is a superhero… It gives me hope. Maybe it means that anything _can_ still happen. Maybe the universe is just what we make of it.”

And just like that, Gwen feels

Whole.

“I guess we better make something good, then.”

 

But her watch had never calibrated correctly while she was there. Once Gwen had gotten out, her only hopes of seeing the other Stacy again was picking a random dimension and hoping for the best, which she obviously didn’t get. But maybe it was better this way. Maybe some meetings only existed for the moment.

**Saturday Afternoon (Family)**

After about an hour for looking for Gwen, Eddie considers trying to play music.

“Is there any vibrations you know that are like, good vibrations?” Eddie asks. “Maybe if we find something with the right tempo, we’ll lure her in.”

It’s a good plan, with one major flaw—Venom doesn’t really like music. He doesn’t like the way the vibrations tickle him, and he especially doesn’t like the screeches of the punk they had woken up to.

I mean, obviously, Eddie knew cool punk songs, because he was _very_ cool, but that didn’t mean he knew one’s that Gwen would like, or how to play it in a way that would catch their attention from wherever they were.

After bemoaning how hard it is to find _one_ girl in an entire _city_ , Venom gets an idea.

 ** _If she likes music, she will be where music is,_** V reasons. **_Especially if she knows we will not be there._**

So Eddie goes to look up all the bands that are playing in 30 mile radius before giving up and checking every potential venue he can find.

He did not expect to feel so stressed about this. He _never_ wants kids. This is terrible.

 

It turns out, they’re both wrong. She’s at a coffeeshop. Turns out all she was looking for was free Wi-Fi and a place to charge her phone, neither of which are compatible with whatever weird technology her world uses. She’s just going through the motions.

“I’m not going to force you to come back,” Eddie says, sliding into a seat across from her. Gwen barely looks up from her phone. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“As okay as I ever am,” Gwen says. “Except, now I know that you kill people for fun.”

“That’s the thing,” Eddie says. “I don’t. I mean, I don’t do it for fun.”

Gwen raises an eyebrow at him.

“When me and V first got together, he almost ate me from the inside out,” Eddie tells her. “But he wasn’t _trying_ to. He was just hungry. And I had something he needed.”

“Ven’s never hungry,” Gwen says. “Not anymore.”

“But we’re not you,” Eddie reminds her. “I don’t _want_ to eat anyone, but if V needs it to survive, then yeah, I’m going to find him an asshole to eat. But I’m going to make sure they’re a bad guy first. I’m not going to try and push you to be okay with that. You have your own morals. That’s good. You’re a good kid, Gwen.”

“Eddie,” Gwen says. She sounds tired, but not angry. He’s not sure if this is an improvement. “When Ven and I first bonded, I was really hungry. But when Ven and I bonded, my dad had just gone into a coma. It was scary, and depressing, and the more I thought about it, the hungrier I got. But then I met the other Gwen, and it felt like the first time in _years,_ I knew I was going to be okay. And just like that, I wasn’t hungry anymore.”

“So, what?” Eddie asks. “You’re saying you’re feeding Venom with happiness? That all I need is some more serotonin?”

“I think it helps,” Gwen says. “But maybe we’re just different people.”

She sounds like she’s disappointed in them, and Eddie can’t stand it. He didn’t even know this girl existed two days ago, and now he wants nothing more than her approval. Guess that was a sign she was really family. Nothing else could make him feel so desperate.

“I never wanted to eat anyone,” Gwen says. “I don’t think Ven did either. So I can’t really relate, and I can’t say I wouldn’t being doing the same thing if I was you, but… I’ve killed someone before, you know? Not on purpose. I never wanted to hurt him, but I did, and suddenly everyone in the city’s demanding Spider-Woman be brought to justice. And since I’m such a great hero, I did it myself. Not right away, but—I went to juvie. I gave up my secret identity. I told you; I needed to give a statement, and I needed them to trust me. Sometimes, you need to give something up for the greater good.”

“And then here I am, killing people,” Eddie says.

“If you’re stronger than everyone else,” Gwen says. “Isn’t it your responsibility to make sure they’re okay? Shouldn’t you be the one making sure they’ve got nothing to fear?”

“I think if you do lots of bad things, you should be worried,” Eddie says. “Some people are never going to be afraid of the cops or lawyers, because they think they can control them. But guys like that—they’re still going to be afraid of losing their lives.”

“But being afraid of being dead doesn’t mean they’re afraid of the consequences of their actions,” Gwen says. “But this isn’t my world. Do you think you’re helping here? Really?”

“I did save the world, once,” Eddie tells her. “Stopped a whole invasion. But I guess most of the stuff I’ve been doing lately is pretty big picture. I’ve been doing a lot of reporting on like, smuggling and stuff, you know? Guess I didn’t feel like I had the time to go after purse snatchers.”

“Well, you did save the world,” Gwen says. She doesn’t sound very impressed. “I guess it’s hard to care about finding your neighbor’s lost keys when you’ve stopped planetary destruction.”

“I can do both _,”_ Eddie says. “I don’t need V to help people. If I need to get someone arrested, I’m going to find the facts, because I’m a _journalist._ All I’ve ever wanted to do is get the truth—listen, do you want a hot chocolate or something? I feel like the barista’s giving us a look.”

“She just thinks this is family drama,” Gwen says, her mouth slowing tugging into a smile. “Like, you’re my dad, and we haven’t spoken in years, only now we’re trying to reconnect, but you don’t understand my teenage angst, and I still harbor like, some secret grudge against you because you never showed up to this one ballet recital of mine when I was five.”

“We’re not a soap opera,” Eddie says. Venom materializes himself in the form of a bracelet on his wrist.

 **“If you want, we can help you understand,”** Venom says softly. Tendrils tentatively reach towards Gwen, who slowly reaches back as several spiders crawl down her arm. One of them reaches Eddie and melts into his skin, and he sees—

_\--It’s so hard for her not to break things now. Super strength doesn’t come with an instruction manual, but she had thought she had gotten the hang of it, but—_

_\--The man’s face is bloodied, her doing, but somehow he still looks like he’s winning. She had trusted him at some point. Believed that even if he was bad, there was still a spark of goodness in him, but she was wrong. Every gift he had given her was just another part of herself he was trying to take away. He grips her hand tight and with a grin that’ll haunt her nightmares he hisses, “You’re just like me,”—_

_\--She doesn’t save him. Spider-Woman will never kill, no matter what, but that doesn’t mean she has to save everyone, either. She won’t free him from his responsibility. The consequences of his actions are just—_

_\--And he’s giving Maria a twenty. She looked hungry, and he wanted to help, but he hadn’t expected her eyes to light up like that, like he’s the only one who looked her way in years. He thanks her, and—_

_\--And he’s eating a man in Mrs. Chen’s bodega. The fear in her eyes quickly turns to relief as she realizes that no one’s going to hurt her, and he’d be proud of that, if he wasn’t so disgusted that a human being was no digesting in his stomach—_

_\--And the world is going to end. But that’s fine. His world has been ending for months now, honestly, with Anne leaving and his career, but if he can save Earth for everyone else, then maybe the feeling of dread that’s been in his stomach for the past few months will finally go away._

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Eddie says.

 **“We can always connect to our hosts thoughts,”** Venom reminds him.

“Is that all that was?” Gwen asks wryly, rubbing her temple. “Maybe I do want that hot chocolate after all.”

“Do you want one of the Girl Scout flavors?”

“I _really_ do,” Gwen says. “I’ve never had an Oreo hot chocolate before. I don’t think they exist on my earth.”

“Well, we’ve got to have something going for us, don’t we?” Eddie says as he goes to order. “Might as well be the earth with the great hot chocolate.”

Gwen snorts. As soon as she gets her drink, it’s clear to him that whatever remaining anger she had is gone.

“I think I’m glad that I met you,” she tells Eddie.

“Yeah?”

“It’s always good to know what your family’s like, you know?” Gwen says. “Gotta make sure your folks don’t pass on any bad genes, like the one that makes you an asshole.”

“Ouch,” Eddie says, placing a hand over his chest.

“I was scared you were a really bad guy,” Gwen tells him. “And I didn’t want you to be, because that meant that _I_ could be too. And I didn’t want that. I’ve been trying, like, really hard not to be. If I did all this, and I’m still going to…”

“You’re not going to go bad,” Eddie says. “You said it yourself: Ven doesn’t get hungry. And you’re clearly the best superhero in your world, so the two of you combined can’t be anything _but_ amazing.”

“I’m not anywhere close to being the best,” Gwen says.

 **“You are obviously the superior hero,”** Venom argues. **“Your ability to adapt to the numerous curves life has thrown shows us your potential.”**

“You guys are really sweet,” Gwen tells them. “I’m sorry I ran.”

“Hey, I don’t blame you,” Eddie says. “If all I knew about someone was that they had super strength and ate people, I think I’d be pretty worried about them too.”

“I still don’t think you need to eat people,” Gwen says. “But… I saw your memories. You’re really putting a lot of thought into what you do. Like, a _lot._ You’re not just killing people. You’re making them take responsibility for all the shit they caused. I can respect that.”

“That’s one way of looking at it, sure.”

“But I still don’t think you _need_ to eat people,” Gwen says. “Not to tell you how to live your life, _buuuut_ have you tried yoga?”

“I’ll give it a shot,” Eddie tells her. He means it. “Wanna go home?”

Gwen finishes the last bit of her hot chocolate, and nods.

 

 

“So, what’s your _favorite_ thing to do with Venom?”

“Well, I’m kind of fond of our dates.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Hey, I can’t help it if we’re madly in love. But I just like him being here, honestly. I love him, and I get him in a way that humans don’t really _get_ to get their partners, you know? It’s always nice to remember how special this is.”

_“Awww.”_

“Also, it’s really cool how easy it is to bend metal now. I keep feeling like it should be stronger than me, but nope, I can tear it like paper.”

“I _know,_ right? Like, who else gets to say they can turn a construction site into paper mache?”

**Sunday**

“So this is it?”

“Looks like. Hear that beep? That means I can go home.”

The four of them are standing on the roof of Eddie’s apartment building. He hates being so high up, but he’s willing to make an exception for Gwen, just like he’s only up this early because of her. He’s not going to miss seeing her off, no matter how grouchy he or Venom feel.

“The sun feels different here,” Gwen says. Her mask is back on, but there’s no mistaking the wistfulness in her voice. “It’s rising differently, too. There’s more colors. It’s really pretty.”

“What does it look like in your world?” Eddie asks.

“More pink, I guess,” Gwen says thoughtfully. “There’s so much more pink in my world. Not just compared to here—I’ve been to a lot of worlds, you know? And I think I can say for sure that no one knows pink like Earth 65. This place doesn’t really have any one color that stands out. It’s lot less vibrant.”

“Well, at least we got great hot chocolate,” Eddie jokes.

“It’s not a bad thing!” Gwen insists. “It feels softer, you know? It’s nice.”

“I’m going to miss you, kid,” Eddie tells her. Gwen looks at him for a long moment before pressing a few buttons on her watch and holding it out in front of him. Some kind of scanner comes out, slowly enveloping him before quickly disappearing as a woman’s voice says, “Eddie Brock: Earth TRN688.”

“Now I can come visit,” Gwen explains. “And make you a playlist of some Ven-approved songs. So, you better promise me to try to lay off the munching heads. Okay?”

Eddie smiles at her. He wishes her mask was down so he could rustle her hair or something. He feels kind of awkward just standing around.

“Okay,” Eddie agrees.

“And—and clean your house!” Gwen adds. “You’re an adult! Get it together, man!”

“I’m doing my best,” Eddie says. “I’m trying, kid.”

“You _better,”_ Gwen tells him, putting her hands on her hips. “I’m not going to come back if I have to babysit you.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

“Okay,” Gwen says. She looks at her watch. “Okay.”

 **“We will miss you,”** Venom tells her, and once he appears, Gwen stands on her toes to pet his globby body on Eddie’s shoulder. **“Eat your vegetables.”**

“Okay, Dad,” Gwen says, giving him one final pat. She presses a button on her watch, and a portal springs forth, hovering just over the ledge. It looks—beautiful. He thinks he’s seeing some colors that don’t exist in his universe. Nothing like a little bit of the impossible in the morning to get you ready for your day.

“Bye, Gwen,” Eddie says.

Gwen gives him a small salute, and jumps through. There’s a bright flash of light—pink, of course—and then Eddie’s standing on the roof alone.

Well.

Not alone. Never alone.

**Monday**

When Eddie gets home, there’s two women in his apartment, eating the rest of Gwen’s waffles. They both have the same face, but they couldn’t be more different. One has bleached blond hair cropped short and purple glasses that remind him of V’s face. The other has a red wig and a green half-mask, complete with elf ears. They’re both wearing silver spider necklaces, and the girl with the sunglasses holds another in her hand.

“Hey,” Glasses says, raising a waffle in greeting. “I don’t think we’ve met. My name is Gwen Stacy.”

“That’s my name, too,” Elf Ears adds. “But you can call me Green Goblin.”

“If you’re looking to have a Gwen-reunion, she left yesterday,” Eddie tells them.

“We’re here to see you, Dad,” Glasses Gwen tells him, and wow, it’s much weirder hearing her say it. The Gwen he met was obviously still a teenager, but these two were in their mid to late twenties. Having a grown-up call him “Dad” was kind of unsettling. “Both of you.”

“Why?”

“We want to help you pay it forward,” Goblin Gwen says. “Don’t you feel so much better after meeting Gwen? I did. Of course, I was in a mechanically-induced trauma feedback loop, so pretty much everything feels better than that.”

“And yet here you are,” Glasses Gwen says. “Still using the glider that fucked you up.”

“Shut up, Gwen,” Goblin tells her cheerfully. Glasses smirks, then turns to Eddie.

“When I first met Gwen Stacy, I was in college,” she says. “She was stuck in my world, so I helped her out. We had to find somewhere the gap between worlds was thin, you know? So we went to a bridge. Funny thing about that bridge is, we were supposed to die there.”

Glasses smiles fondly, as if this is a fun anecdote she recounts all the time. Then again, Eddie doesn’t know her. This might just be how she always introduces herself.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but she did. So many Gwen Stacys have died on that bridge. So many girls lost their lives to the chaos and disorder of the world,” Glasses says. “But not us. Not her. I saw her jump from that bridge. I think it might have saved my life.”

“You know about the Butterfly Affect, right?” Goblin asks. “One small thing changes, and suddenly you’re causing ripples everywhere. Gwen saved me, so I want to save Gwen. And that’s how it’s going to go, until every universe has a girl trying to keep doomed souls from dying.”

“We want to change the world, Eddie,” Glasses says. “Your world, specifically. Stuff like this works better if the interference doesn’t look intentional. Now, you don’t have to help, but right now, there’s a Gwen Stacy in New York trying to finish her college applications. She might never get to, if things play out as they usually do—which they _will,_ because this part of the story’s always the same—well, she’ll either fall off the bridge or break her neck getting saved.”

“So you want me to save her?” Eddie asks.

“We don’t actually _save_ Gwens,” Goblin clarifies. “We give them the tools to save themselves. Like, say, a cool superhero taking her under his wing, coincidentally giving her enough superhero street-smarts to know better than to go chasing down a friend wearing a mask. Or something. I’m paraphrasing here.”

“All we’re asking you to do is introduce yourself,” Glasses says. She holds out the extra necklace. “It doesn’t have to be today. Doesn’t even have to be this year. Maybe give her this, when she seems ready. Or keep it, I don’t care. Gwen can always make a new one.”

“I’m getting really good at it,” Goblin agrees.

Eddie looks back and forth at the two women. Then, he takes the necklace. Glasses smiles at him.

“Welcome to the Council of Spider-Women, Eddie Brock,” she tells him. “Let’s make the world a little kinder, one step at a time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact, the only Brock Gwen knows is scientist elsa brock, who gave her her venom! When writing this, i forgot that gwen's venom was man made until i looked it up, and i was like "oh my gosh, it's v's DAUGHTER." Originally, they were just going to joke about being siblings. I know in the comics, Venom actually has a bunch of kids, but that's a lot to include for a fic that I didn't even plan to be this long  
> I just think there's a lot to be said about gwen's relationship to venom! I feel like she really sees v as part of herself now, but I want ven to have like... more character than that? she's more than gwen stacy's coping mechanism. for one thing, gwen is HER coping mechanism too  
> also, the obvious conclusion of this fic is eddie showing up in gwen's world and being mistaken for her dad's new boyfriend because gwen jokingly calls him dad. there's no where im going with that, but its a fun mental image


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